April 2017 - Centrepoint

The chosen charity for April 2017 is Centrepoint.

A client of mine, Captain Nathan Mills, is (today!) running his first London Marathon in aid of this worthy cause, so I thought it only right that I support him, and the cause, with my April Donate A Day contribution.

(Nathan's donation page can be found here: virginmoneygiving)

As someone who has lived around London for my whole life, the Centrepoint building has been a focal point, and a recognisable landmark whenever I've been up in the West End, so I was very happy to support a good charity that is based around this familiar building.

Homeless young people, aged 16-25, stay with Centrepoint for up to two years, but they keep supporting them for another six months to make sure they can live independently.
They provide accommodation, health support and life skills to get them back into education, training and employment.

From their website:

Centrepoint is the UK's leading charity for homeless young people - but what does that actually mean? It means that, together with our partners, we support 9,000 young people every year. We help 16-25 year olds into a safe place to live, give them a health assessment and plan support for their individual mental and physical health needs. We start them on a path to more independence and a job.

March 2017 - Trigeminal Neuralgia Association

The chosen charity for March 2017 is the TRIGEMINAL NEURALGIA Association.

I don't know very much at all about this charity, nor the condition it supports, but an old friend of mine knows a sufferer of the condition.

TRIGEMINAL NEURALGIA is an extremely severe facial pain that tends to come and go unpredictably in sudden shock-like attacks. The pain is normally triggered, for example by light touch, and is described as stabbing, shooting, excruciating or burning. It usually lasts for a few seconds but there can be many bursts of pain in quick succession.

It was only after I had made my donation that I also noticed that they are based in Oxted, where I live, so it is also a local charity too.

After my donation I received a lovely emailed thank you note from them.

February 2017 - Wildlife Aid

The chosen charity for Donate A Day February 2017 is Wildlife Aid.

I have donated to Wildlife Aid before, and was a volunteer there for about a year or so back in 2011/2012 and they do a fantastic job of helping injured and sick wildlife return to their natural place in the wild, whist also enabling volunteers to get closer to wildlife and understand animals' needs.

Set up in 1980 by one man, Simon Cowell OBE (no, not that one!), it has grown to a team dedicated to helping the local wildlife.

Whilst browsing their website, I noticed that at the beginning of the year a thief broke in and stole a caravan belonging to the charity, costing them a lot of money to replace. They set up an appeal to help cover the costs incurred, and this donation went towards that appeal.

January 2017 - St Catherines Hospice

The chosen charity for January's Donate A Day is St Catherine's Hospice

This is a relatively local charity that offers a lot of different levels of support and care.

From their website:

We’re a local charity with a big ambition: to help everyone face death informed, supported and pain free. Providing expert hospice care, we’re there for people in West Sussex and East Surrey when life comes full circle.

We also pioneer standards in end of life care through collaboration, research and training, reaching even more people facing death and bereavement.